Subscription Economy News – Week of 08/06/18

Apple tops 300 million paid subscriptionsExcerpts from an article by Tim Peterson on Digiday
Apple’s subscription business is already big, but it’s about to get even bigger.Apple has sold more than 300 million subscriptions to its own and others’ apps, an increase of more than 60 percent in the past year alone, Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the company’s latest earnings call on July 31.

Apple didn’t say how much money it has made from these subscriptions, but Cook said that it accounts for a significant and increasing percentage of its overall services business.

The number of subscriptions that Apple sells may balloon next year when it will reportedly roll out new subscription services. Bloomberg has reported that Apple plans to roll out a Netflix-style subscription service in the Apple News app following the company’s acquisition of digital magazine subscription service Texture earlier this year. And The Information has reported that Apple plans to roll out an all-in-one subscription service that would bundle video, music and news content, similar to Amazon’s Prime subscription service.Read the full article here.

AT&T is now the sole owner of Otter MediaExcerpts from an article by Anthony Ha in TechCrunch
Otter Media is no longer a joint venture between AT&T and The Chernin Group — AT&T announced today that it has acquired The Chernin Group’s controlling interest in the digital media company.

The New York Times reports that analysts valued the deal at more than $1 billion.Read the full article here.

Doordash launches monthly subscriptionExcerpts from an article by Paul Sawers in Venture Beat
On-demand restaurant delivery platform DoorDash is rolling out two new services to customers from today: a subscription plan and a food pickup option for faster takeout.

DoorDash has been dabbling with a monthly subscription pilot program for at least a few months already, but now the company is officially launching its $9.99 DashPass service, which gives consumers free deliveries on all orders of $15 or more.Read the full article here.

NYT reports $24 million profit, thanks to digital subscribersExcerpts from an article by Jaclyn Peiser in The New York Times
The New York Times continued its digital growth in the second quarter of 2018, adding 109,000 digital-only subscribers. With that rise came an increase in revenue that counteracted a decline in print advertising.

The company said on Wednesday that revenue from digital subscriptions rose to $99 million in the second quarter, a jump of nearly 20 percent compared with the same period a year ago. Over all for the second quarter, total revenue increased 2 percent, to $415 million, and the company reported a profit of almost $24 million.

The Times now has 2.9 million digital-only subscribers, out of 3.8 million total.

“Subscription revenues accounted for nearly two-thirds of the company’s revenues, a trend we expect to continue,” Mark Thompson, the company’s chief executive, said in a news release. “We continue to believe that there is significant runway to expand that base substantially.”Read the full article here.